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Monday, January 27, 2014

Sandra Rhodes—Al Green's backing vocalist—gets reissued on Omnivore

Twenty feet from stardom . .
.

SANDRA
RHODES SANG BACKUP ON AL GREEN’S CLASSIC HITS;

HER
1972 SOLO ALBUM, RECORDED AT SAM PHILLIPS’ STUDIO,

REISSUED
ON OMNIVORE RECORDINGS ON MARCH 18

On
CD for the first time, Sandra Rhodes’ Where’s Your Love Been

contains
seven bonus tracks.

MEMPHIS,
Tenn. — While Sandra
Rhodes made a name for herself singing behind Al Green on his classic Hi
Records sides and writing songs including Conway Twitty’s #1 single “The Clown,”
her best work missed the public eye. And ear.

Where’s
Your Love Been, Rhodes’s 1972 album for Fantasy Records, was recorded at
the Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis (founded in 1960 as a roomier
successor to the legendary producer’s Sun Studio). Just as her backing vocals
(usually performed with sister Donna and then husband Charlie Chalmers) appeared
on recordings of every genre, the disc reflects the Memphis native’s
extraordinary musical flexibility. Much of the set displayed a pronounced
country vibe, yet a couple of its selections were unabashed Memphis soul. Sandra
sounds gloriously at home on all of them. That range — it’s why her own songs
have been recorded by artists as diverse as Skeeter Davis and Isaac
Hayes.

Co-produced
by Sandra and Chalmers, the ten tracks on Where’s Your Love Been
include originals like the title cut as well as a cover of the Rolling Stones’
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” To make this album’s CD debut, due out
March 11 on Omnivore
Recordings, even more special, seven bonus tracks from the sessions have
been unearthed — all previously unissued.

Had this
album been a commercial success, Sandra Rhodes’ musical fortunes might have
unfolded differently. “You just never know if one thing had been a hit or
another, what would have happened,” Rhodes muses. “I’m sure it would have
changed the course of our lives in one way or another. But the way things went,
we got to dabble in a little bit of all of it — and still are!”

Although
Sandra and Charlie are no longer married, they still have a publishing com­pany
and team on various musical ventures (Rhodes, Chalmers & Rhodes were on Al
Green’s acclaimed 2003 secular comeback CD I Can’t Stop). Charlie
operates his own recording studio in Branson, Miss. Sandra and younger sister
Donna co-star in a new incarnation of The Rhodes Show television
program — which enjoyed an initial 27-year run in Memphis in the ‘60s — around
the Ozarks (Sandra now lives in Arkansas) and the mid-South.

With liner
notes from Bill Dahl in a full color booklet, Where’s Your Love Been is
ready for the audience that missed out on it over four decades ago. As with many
other great “unheard” albums, Omnivore Recordings is proud to tell everyone that
the question of Where’s Your Love Been has finally been
answered.

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